The Stars Are Not Heaven
by Wicked Kitten
Summary: A common street hood finds adventure in the desert...perhaps more than he bargained for. [Update 7/9: Had to resubmit the first part as I hadn't checked the first chapter option. Some changes have been made to Part 1 and Part 2 is now up.]
1. The Stars Are Not Heaven

2598:  
Protoss Scouts detect strange spore like clouds in orbit around the Terran inhabited world of Tasion. In their report back to the Conclave, they described them as gas floating up from the volcanic mountains of that region. The Conclave, assuming that it was nothing more than a natural occurrence, thought nothing more of this report.  
  
2599:  
Reports of cattle mutilations become wide spread across Savbila, a farming region just outside the mountains of Tasion. In several instances, whole farms disappeared along with those that inhabited them.  
  
The Sons of Korhal establish a temporary base in the Fikira desert to replenish their supplies.  
  
2600:  
Present day.  
  
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -   
  
Alex Morrison's eyes followed a shooting stars path across the sky as one last scream pierced the silence before dying out in a choked gurgle. It wasn't long before the headlights of the two vehicles parked side by side lit up the frames of three men coming up from behind the sand dune.   
  
"Did you finish it?" He asked, not taking his gaze away from the heavens.  
  
"Yeah," replied a sandy haired guy named Jason as he was tucking his shirt into his pants, grinning. "She didn't struggle all that much, nor really even try to get away. She must have liked it."   
  
Alex shifted his gaze over to him, quirking an eyebrow and the grin quickly disappeared from Jason's face. Alex said nothing to him, instead sitting up from where he had been reclined back on the hood of his car against the windshield and swung his legs around to dangle above the ground. He turned his gaze to Tom Watts, the smallest guy of the bunch, as he was getting himself a beer from the toolbox turned cooler Guy Matthews kept in the back of his vespine gas powered truck. Then to Guy himself, the burley type one would typecast as your typical football player, whom had several scratches across his cheeks, one deep one right under his left eye. Finally, he stopped on James Colbank, the self proclaimed "second in command" of this little bunch. Each one of them looked satisfied with themselves. James had even lit up a cigarette and passed it to Guy after taking a puff. Following the cigarette, Alex's eyes were back on Guy.  
  
"I thought you said she didn't struggle all that much," Alex stated, more to himself than anything else.  
  
"Well, she didn't," Guy answered before taking a long drag off the cig. "She wasn't conscious for much longer after that."  
  
The other two chuckled at his comments but were silence once again due to the blank expression on Alex's face.   
  
"Come on man. It was just a joke," Tom said, in an attempt to cover for his friend.  
  
Alex shook his head, tossing his half full can of beer into the sand. "Let's get out of here," he said, sliding off the hood of the car. "The pitch blackness gives me the creeps."  
  
Guy and Tom exchanged a glance before heading toward Guys truck. Alex had been acting different lately. The deeds that had brought him joy before no longer seemed to matter anymore. He had this indifferent aura about him, like he just didn't give a shit. Take the events of that night, for example. He didn't even participate like he normally would. The guys had gotten the girl in hopes that it would cheer him up but, once they had arrived at their designated spot, he simply reminded them to clean up afterwards and walked back to where they had parked. They weren't complaining though. Rarely did they ever get to join in when he was the instigator of such things, but that didn't mean they weren't concerned about him.  
  
In all reality, they were right about him not caring. Alex didn't, at least not about that anymore. He was coming to find that while the lifestyle of taking anything you wanted was grand, it was lacking something, but he had yet to figure out what. All he really knew was nothing held much excitement anymore and lacked the adventurous feeling it once had.  
  
He was lost in these thoughts as he climbed behind the wheel of his car, James climbing in the passenger seat just as he was closing his door.  
  
"Hey man, you ok?" He asked Alex, looking at him with worry.  
  
"Yeah, I'm fine," he said, turning the key in the ignition. The engine revved to life, sand rising up in a cloud behind the car from the blast of air from the exhaust pipes. The car was Alex's pride and joy, an antique somehow preserved from twentieth century Earth know as a Mustang. There were very few gas powered automobiles left in existence, so Alex took care of his as a father would take care of his child.  
  
Just as Alex shifted the car into drive and started backing up, Guys truck gave a leap and landed hard with the sound of crumpling metal. Alex slammed on the brakes, parking it while the passenger door of the truck opened and Tom came staggering around to the car.  
  
"T-There's something in there!" Tom sputtered, trying to crawl into the car through James open window.  
  
"What?" Alex said, getting out of the car, his eyes shifting from Tom to the truck. Through the side window, he could see Guy slumped over the steering wheel. "You guys just probably hit a rock, that's all."  
  
Alex walked around to the other side of his car to calm him down as James opened his door. Tom grabbed him by the collar, yanking him out the rest of the way out and out of his way before trying to climb in the car to the drivers side. He was scared, but there was no way Alex was going to let him take his car. Getting a hold of Tom by the ankle, Alex pulled him halfway out of the car before he grabbed the steering wheel.  
  
"Let me go!" Tom yelled, using his other foot to kick at Alex's arms, stomach or any other body part he could possibly kick.  
  
"Calm down damnit," James said, having recovered from the fall and grabbing Tom's other leg. "There's nothing out here!"  
  
With a noise that was much like that of what had come from the truck, a long spine shot up through the center of the hood, staying in the air for a moment before retreating back down as the engine gurgled and died. Tom's scream filled the car and he wiggled free from Alex and James grasp, their attention turned from him to the steam rising from under the hood, due to a severed hose.   
  
"What the-" Alex started before the spike emerged again, this time just a few inches in front of them. He jumped backwards, dragging James with him. Tom threw open the drivers side door of the car, making a break for the open desert. He had only ran a few feet when the spike came up from the ground under him, and Alex and James watched in horror as it ripped him apart before returning underground.  
  
p align=rightContinued...  



	2. The Stars Are Not Heaven: Part 2

Silence filled the air as Alex and James stood rooted to their spots. The normal sounds you would want to listen to at night were now absent, and all they could hear was the thundering of their heartbeats in their ears, each beat hammering like thunder. Several long moments passed before Alex finally spoke.  
  
"Get the flashlight from the glove box," he whispered, his voice making James jump. "We're getting out of here."  
  
"We're not even near a town though," James whispered. "We could be walking all night."  
  
"Walking is better than staying here."  
  
With those words said, he made his way slowly to Guy's truck. Guy had always kept one of those huge battery powered lights under his seat and it was way more powerful than the one Alex kept for emergencies. He would feel bad for taking it from his friend but, if Guy shared the same fate as Tom, then he wouldn't be needing it.   
  
Once he opened the door, Alex could see that they did. Guys hands still gripped the steering wheel, his head resting against it as if he had fallen asleep, but his hands were covered in blood, small droplets dripping down into a puddle on the floor. His blood supposedly, but Alex couldn't see the wound from that angle. Crouching down beside the open door, he slid his hand under the seat, feeling around for the light. The carpeting was squishy and wet and he could feel the hole in the floor where the spike had come through. It was just a little bit bigger round than his fist, but it had already proven the kind of damage it could do.  
  
Leaning against the door frame, Alex probed further under the seat, finding the light under the passenger seat, then felt around for anything that might be used as a weapon. All he found was a tire iron, but that would hardly be effect against..whatever it was under the sand. Alex stood and took one last look at Guy before shutting the door then turning back to his car. Tom had Alex's flashlight in his hand and was casting the beam around in various directions.  
  
"Come on," Alex said, the large beam produced from Guys light piercing through the darkness. He walked around the truck and headed in the direction away from the passenger side, James quickly catching up and walking along side him.  
  
They made their way across the sand in silence, each lost in their own thoughts. James kept replaying the events of the night in his head, more as a distraction than anything else, but also taking an attempt at figuring out what went wrong. One minute they were having fun, the next, two of his friends were dead. Alex was also thinking about this, but he the let the question run freely through his mind that James was working so hard at keep back. Would this be the end of them as well?  
  
While James hoped with ever fiber of his being that it wouldn't be, it was safe to say that Alex really didn't care. Death is death, it would happen eventually. Why should it matter if it was now or later? It was unexpected that it should happen this way, if it indeed was to occur. He always thought it would be in a gang fight or perhaps in a scuffle with the Confederate Police. God knows they had nearly caught them in this or that act of "malice" that would have certainly gotten them locked away, perhaps even executed. That was the way to go out for the common criminal, not standing up to your ankles in sand while a subterranean thing shoots up between your legs to impale you where the sun doesn't shine.  
  
The night grew longer, their journey into the desert seeming to stretch endlessly into one sand dune after another. Neither of them knew the time as they wore no watches. Alex always thought time was only relative if you had to be somewhere, and the others followed his example no matter what he said or did. Added to that was the overcast sky, giving away no traces of the moons position which may have given them some idea of the time. As close as Alex could figure as he remembered what time it was when he left home, it was early morning.   
  
He was trying to figure out an approvement time when he noticed the rustling sound. It was loud at first then faded slightly, just barely heard, but still there. He didn't pay much attention to it at first, figuring James was shuffling his feet or kicking up sand for something to do. When it kept up though, Alex glanced over to see that he was just walking along.  
  
"Is that you making that noise?" he asked.  
  
James shook his head, raising his gaze up from the ground to look at him. "I thought it was you. Must be a desert animal or something."  
  
Alex nodded, turning back to the front. It was a logical answer. After all, who knew what could live out here, in the desert smack dab in the middle of nowhere. This thought brought him no comfort and only added to his unease as he was now wondering what did live out here in the middle of nowhere.  
  
"Think we could rest a minute?" James question was a welcome interruption.  
  
"Yeah," he said, slowing down to a stop with James following suit. "A few minutes won't hurt."  
  
James bent over a little, his hands resting on his knees. "We should have stayed at the car. Maybe somebody would have come by and picked us up."  
  
Alex shook his head. "Who would have? We're in the middle of the desert in the dead of night. You'd have to be either a cop or a criminal to be out here that late, and with two dead guys and a murdered girl not ten feet from us, I would rather not run into either."  
  
James didn't say anything for a while then nodded, righting himself and stretching his arms up over his head with a yawn. He was tired, they both were. While neither of them were out of shape, this walk was taking a lot out of them.   
  
Alex covered his own yawn with his hand, blinking away the look of tiredness he could feel starting to creep into his expression. His ears popped with the movement of his jaw and, as his hearing returned to normal, he could hear the shuffling again. It was closer this time and it was only now that he noticed it had ceased for the moment they had stopped. He opened his mouth to mention this to James but, as he glanced to his face, Alex could see he already knew this.   
  
Then all was quiet. James looked over to Alex, gulping nervously. Neither of them moved nor made a sound. It seemed as if an unspoken communication had passed between them. Maybe if they were still then whatever it was would forget they were there and move on. But this wasn't the case. The shuffling was replaced by a low rumble, and it took them a moment in their respective states of panic to recognize it as a growl.  
  
p align=rightContinued...  



End file.
